The first bananas
Orientation:
Once upon a
time, a very beautiful young woman was wooed by a handsome young man, whom she
had never seen before. His countenance was divine, his every movement
graceful. Surely such a magnificent
creature could not come from this world!
“I live far, far away,”
was only what the stranger told her at the start. “ In my land,
everything is fair and good.”
He enjoyed speaking about his land. Whenever he and the young
woman were together, he spoke about such wonders and delights that the young
woman was tempted to believe that he had not come from this world. At last she
brought herself to ask, “what are you?”
The young man seemed to blanch at this question and he did
not answer at once. He stood up and walked around. He looked troubled. When he
looked back at the young woman, it was whit a beatifully sad smile.
“alas.” He said, “you have asked the question I had been
warned to put from your mind. It is partly my fault for being so careless, I am
sorry. This will be the last night for us to meet.”
The starled young woman asked at once, “what do you mean?”
The young man readily answered, “There is nothing more to
hide. I am an elf-prince. I had only asked to be placed in the world of man for
some time. During that time I found the most radiant creature I have ever seen
and I fell in love with her. I made haste to tell my father the king, who said, ‘If she loves you enought
to accept you as you are without question, marry her. But if at the first opportunity, she ask, you must
leave her, leave the world and return home.”’
The elf-prince shook his head sadly. “ But I have done myself
wrong. I should not have said so much about myself. I have made you curious of
forbidden things.”
Dawn broke just as he was ending his story. “ My kinfolk will
be coming for me if I do not leave at once,” he told the young woman. “ I must
go.”
The young woman, who had fallen in love with him, held on to
his hands until the sun was well into the sky. It was then that, all a sudden
and in the middle of his gentle pleadings, the elf-prince disappeared. As the
young woman could not dissappear with
him, he left his mortal hands behind, which the girl would not release even
after the had gone.
Resolution
The girl knew that she would have to hide those beautiful
fairy hands. The she dug a hole in the ground where the fairy prince had stood,
placed the hands in the hole and marked the place of their short burial with a
stone. She came back to the same spot day after day, paying reverence to the
only memory she had of her love.
Then, one day. A plant started growing beside the rock she
had set to mark the small ‘grave’. She tended to it lovingly, until it
blossomed to be a tall plant with cool, broad leaves and sweet yellow fruit
which grew in clusters. The girl noticed that the fruit looked like fingers,
and it was then that she realized taht the plant was, in fact, her lover’s
final gift to her.
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Wooed: dirayu
Countenance
Divine
Movement
Graceful
Magnificent
Creature
Stranger
Told
Land
Spoke
Wonders
Delights
Brought
Blanch
Stood
Around
Troubled
Warned
Partly
Careless
Startled
Mean
During
Radiant
Fell
Haste
Enough
Opportunity
Shook
forbidden
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Dawn
Kinfolk
Told
Fallen
Middle
Gentle
Pleadings
Disappeared
Behind
Release
Knew
Those
Fairy
Thus
Ground
Stood
Reverence
Beside
Grave
Tended
Blossomed
Plant
Which
Clusters
Realized
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